KYIV: Three senior US security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss military aid to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said on Saturday.
“We discussed the further provision of necessary assistance to our country, in particular vehicles, weapons and ammunition,” Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.
Yermak said he, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, top general Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and several other senior commanders and officials had attended the meeting.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, top military commander Mark Milley, and the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan represented the other side.
Yermak did not give details of specific requests to the US side.
The meeting took place as Kyiv seeks to gather sufficient supplies of arms from its Western backers, of which the US has been the most significant, to mount a counter-offensive and try to take back territory captured by Moscow last year.
Yermak added that Zelensky had joined the meeting at the end to give his views on the liberation of Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia since its invasion nearly 13 months ago.
“We briefed our allies in detail about the current situation at the front, combat operations in the most difficult areas, as well as the urgent needs of the Ukrainian army,” Yermak said.
Ukrainian forces continued on Friday to withstand Russian assaults on the ruined city of Bakhmut, the focal point for eight months of Russian attempts to advance through the industrial Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine bordering Russia.
Top Ukraine, US defense officials discussed military aid in call - Kyiv
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Top Ukraine, US defense officials discussed military aid in call - Kyiv
- The meeting took place as Kyiv seeks to gather sufficient supplies of arms from its Western backers
Zelensky says Russia using Belarus territory to circumvent Ukrainian defenses
- While President Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Russia was using ordinary apartment blocks on the territory of its ally Belarus to attack Ukrainian targets and circumvent Kyiv’s defenses.
The Kremlin used Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Belarus remains a steadfast ally, though longstanding President Alexander Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the conflict.
“We note that the Russians are trying to bypass our defensive interceptor positions through the territory of neighboring Belarus. This is risky for Belarus,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram after a military staff meeting.
“It is unfortunate that Belarus is surrendering its sovereignty in favor of Russia’s aggressive ambitions.”
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had observed that Belarus was deploying equipment to carry out its attacks “in Belarusian settlements near the border, including on residential buildings.
“Antennae and other equipment are located on the roofs of ordinary five-story apartment buildings, which help guide ‘Shaheds’ (Russian drones) to targets in our western regions. This is an absolute disregard for human lives, and it is important that Minsk stops playing with this.”
The Russian and Belarusian defense ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zelensky said the staff meeting also discussed ways of financing interceptor drones, which officials in Kyiv see as the best economically viable means of tackling Russian drone attacks, which have grown in intensity in recent months.
The president said the Ukrainian military’s general staff had been charged with working out changes to strategy in fending off air attacks “to defend infrastructure and frontline positions.”
Lukashenko this month said Russia’s Oreshnik ballistic missile system, described by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin as impossible to intercept, had been deployed to Belarus and entered active combat duty.
An assessment by two US researchers, reported by Reuters on Friday, said Moscow was likely stationing the nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik at a former air base in eastern Belarus, a development that could bolster Russia’s ability to deliver missiles across Europe.
